Oil and petrol reserves opened

TWENTY-SIX countries in an international energy consortium will release 60 million barrels of crude oil and petrol to relieve the energy crunch caused by Hurricane Katrina.

As part of that effort, the Bush administration will release 30 million barrels of crude oil from US reserves.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman called this an initial response, part of what he called an aggressive federal response to the disaster. The fuel being released by the International Energy Agency will be released over the coming month. The reserves will amount to about two million barrels a day coming into US markets.